Earth-Like Candidates Found

Several exoplanets stand out as potentially Earth-like. TRAPPIST-1 hosts seven rocky planets, three in the habitable zone, all just 40 light-years away. Proxima Centauri b orbits the nearest star to the Sun. Kepler-442b is a rocky super-Earth in a wider habitable-zone orbit.

But "Earth-like" is misleading. We know these planets' sizes and orbits, not whether they have atmospheres or liquid water. TRAPPIST-1's planets circle a red dwarf whose intense flares could strip atmospheres away. "Potentially habitable" is the more honest label until we can study their surfaces directly.